


If you see him, say hello

by grownocean



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Implied Past Abuse, Implied past Theon/Ramsay, M/M, Referenced Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 07:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13162440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grownocean/pseuds/grownocean
Summary: Throbb Secret Santa Modern AU:Theon keeps an art journal/diary. Inside he writes about the city he lives in, the spots he frequents, the people he sees.He writes about his family and his innermost thoughts and fears, his secret wishes for a different kind of life. He also draws a lot, landscapes, portraits, flowers he saw, coffee he had. you get the idea. One day he loses that art journal and Robb happens to find it. There's no name or phone number attached. Because he's a good person and the police didn't take him seriously, he has to find the owner of the diary based solely on what is written inside it. So he tries to go to the places described or find the people who are drawn in it etc. Reading Theon's sincere feelings and thoughts makes Robb fall in love with him before they even meet. And once he sees him for the first time the chemistry sets it in stone. the POV is Robb's. Preferably.





	If you see him, say hello

**Author's Note:**

  * For [madeleineinprague](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=madeleineinprague).



> Written for @madeleineinprague (madeleineinprague.tumblr.com), for Throbb Secret Santa.  
> Thank you so much for providing such a beautiful prompt. I fell in love with it instantly. 
> 
> Title partially taken from Bob Dylan.  
> 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> _When you look at them, they startle you at first._  
>  _When night falls and hides everything, both the good and the bad, every night you look at the stars for the first time and they look almost scary._  
>  _That’s when you lower your head, tense, so you can at least recover from the feeling, and when you are ready to face they sky again the stars are still there, but the moment of magnificence is over._
> 
> _You can now look at them better, one by one, and you think you can almost distinguish between them - nothing but a presumption instilled in those who live so far away from the sky as we do, far beyond the reach of humans - you think you can almost understand them. Perhaps you are guided by some rudimentary notion of astrology - how they are born, how they die, and whatever stands between life and death. If there is no knowledge, maybe there is faith - the one that makes you close your eyes and make a wish and hope for it to come true._  
>  _If there is neither knowledge nor faith, you can make the effort of trying to grasp the beauty of it. Let men admire stars without thinking of having to understand them, and without giving them their dreams away. Let men love stars for what they are. If there isn’t even that, then all that is left is emptiness. And it's terrifying._
> 
> _Are they even that different, stars and men? Men look at their own kind with the same presumption, they claim a similar complicity that causes them to trade favors and expectations with each other, which means that when they fail, they despise each other even more._
> 
> _The first time you look at someone, they startle you. The second time, the moment of magnificence is over._  
>  _You can now look into them, appreciate the details - the facial expressions, their gestures, the tone of their voice. If you pretend to already know anything about mankind you can’t learn, but when you start learning you never really stop. You will learn how to read others’ intentions, to shield yourself from what is not right._
> 
> _If a wish doesn’t come true, do you blame the star that knew your secret because it's easier than blaming yourself?_  
>  _I will not give my wishes away to these stars no more. They have no power over me, as power has no one else in the world. I look at them like we’re equals, because we’re just part of this same matter that makes up the universe and nothing more._

 

"Listen, son. This is all very interesting to read, but you can’t be serious."

The first word people use to describe Robb is that he is kind. His mother has always told him that. Always.  
Growing up, her series of "you're kind” had gradually turned into a series of "you're _too_ kind," almost like a warning, and the worst part of it is that the more he tries to find his way through this civilized jungle that is London, the more he can see why.  
Kindness, when you are young enough, makes you look good in front of others.  
When you're a kind and happy toddler, greeting every stranger from your seat on the stroller, people kneel in front of you and say: “look at you … you’re a cute little thing, aren’t you?”  
When you are a kind child, you are still protected from the innocence of childhood, so that even those first few comments thrown casually - _too kind for his age, he is_ \- don’t quite reach your ears yet.  
If you grow up and you're still that kind, still that nice, it suddenly becomes a fault. As if it were a sin to expiate, something that can’t bring any good in life. It's not cute anymore.

The policeman sitting has the same look in his eyes, the look of someone who has decided that this young man in front of him will never amount to anything if he decides to spend his Saturdays at a police station trying to hand journal notebooks in.

"Well, it's a lost object. And it seems, uh, quite personal, so I thought it would be best to bring it here.”

“Unless this person has confessed a crime inside that, I can’t do anything about it. We only take valuables in. A wallet, that I can help. A laptop. Gold jewellery. This isn’t made of gold, I can tell…”

Robb is growing annoyed. _No, it’s just paper. I got it._ He had found it on the tube while he was heading home that morning, forgotten right in front of the sliding doors. He had spotted it almost immediately, getting on at Borough station after a solitary walk along the river.  
It was a cheap notebook, one of those that are sold in grocery stores, blue with its rings a bit stained. No one else seemed to pay attention to it. People got on at every stop, occasionally stepping on it with their feet. Robb almost took pity on it.

Someone had taken it at some point. A young woman, maybe curious, maybe bored. Probably both. She had sat in front of Robb and was flipping through it absently, allowing him to take quick looks. He was able to see a few drawings, some pencil, others pastel and watercolor. Even the woman started to show some interest, as a glimpse of surprise grew bigger on her face, a moment of relief from life and its commitments.  
Life had reclaimed her back at Euston, and so she had to get up quickly, leaving the journal on the seat. There were more people waiting to get on now, and Robb didn’t have to think twice. He had reached for the journal before anyone else could throw it elsewhere, but he didn’t look at it once, not until he got home. There, in his kitchen, a steaming cup of tea on the counter, he had tried to read the first page, something about stars and men, and that had been enough.

Reading something so intimate had made him feel guilty.  
There was no name, no clue about the person’s identity, so he had decided to hand it in to the nearest police station - he would have gone back to where it went missing, if he only had known where that was.

The policeman in front of him shakes his head and chuckles.

"Well, at least the drawings are quite decent” he says, flipping through them. "There's some talent."

Robb, despite his kindness, gets even more annoyed at that. He wishes he could tell him to stop looking at it.

"Can I have it back?" he murmurs instead. The journal is returned to him.

"Try to bring it back where you found it. Maybe someone’s looking for it."

Robb doubts that little thing could survive on its own out there in the city.

He nods anyway, and he sighs in relief when he’s out in the cold, even if that means being back under the rain and the grey cloudy sky that will keep the stars to itself tonight.

 

 

He puts the journal away and tries not to think about it anymore.

He has his own projects to care about: his first real job at an animation studio, a turning point in his life after a series of occasional freelance commissions that haven’t yielded him much.  
The studio itself is nothing special. He works in CGI, making short animated videos for different companies. It isn’t exactly his dream, but he doesn’t really mind it either. At the very least, he’s happy he can get by.

Someone knocks at the door of his small office.

"Stark?"

Robb clears his desk quickly, putting away some doodles that have nothing to do with work and closing his laptop.

He goes to open the door. "Mr. Davies."

The man - his boss - enters the room. He never sends for him when he wants to talk, he just comes to his office every time - Robb suspects this is how he controls his employees.  
He isn't too bad, though, and Robb might even like him. He has enough creative freedom to not feel completely miserable.

"I have work for you” the man says, leaning on the desk and having a look around.

Robb is surprised. Any new project is usually discussed with the whole group, and they are pretty much always collective.

"What kind of work?" he asks.

The man smiles. "Well, the director of this English language school just contacted me. They’re American, you see, but they want to open a new campus in London, so their team is working on a new website. They want a video of ... wait, let me find my notes.”

He grabs his phone and puts his glasses on. "A video of no more than two minutes, animated of course, something captivating that shows London as a, uh, I quote, fairy-tale but it has to be realistic-looking at the same time, highlighting its beauties, its main attractions and not just that ... wait, this is stuff I added myself, let me work this out … So, blah, blah, blah, something that can also show the most unusual sides of this city, blah, blah, blah, which can prove why it’s clearly the most suitable city for an unforgettable life experience, blah, blah, blah. Well, in short, an animation of the city. Famous stuff and non."

Robb sighs. He doesn’t pretend he’s interested in this stuff anymore, not since he realised his boss is, possibly, even more bored than him.

“And so I told them: I have the right man for the job. My most imaginative, promising animator. One word: you."

Robb's eyes widen. “Me? Just me?”

The man giggles. “Yes. I think it’s something you can do on your own. It’s that kind of stuff that is all about interpretation, and I’d rather have one person than twenty for this. I just need you.”

Robb shakes his head. "I don’t know if I’m the right person."

It's a nice opportunity, and he almost regrets his words the moment he pronounces them. He’s sure about this, though. He can’t.

"I don’t know London, I just moved here less than two months ago. I wouldn’t be able to. Wouldn’t know where to start.”

The man laughs again. "Come on, you. No need to know the city for this. Just make a few animations of the same usual stuff everyone else in the world knows, the Big Ben, the London Eye, the river, Trafalgar Square if you feel like it, a stupid park of your choice that you can pass for Hyde Park and you’re good. Done. Easy.”

"But ..."

"Stark, my boy, that’s all they are asking. They say they want something original, but that's what everyone says. Of course they say that. Truth is, they care less than us and it’s only because they want to please us - look, we totally, totally love London. We’re moving here because we love it, it has nothing to do with money, not all.” He laughs again. “Come on. They will have students coming here for a few weeks who will want to see the same places everyone wants to see.” He gives him a pat on the shoulder. "Pitch me an idea next week. Anything will do. "

Robb sighs. "I ... I will think of something."

"Of course you will! Full of wits, you are. You know how to look through this world.”

When he is out of the room, Robb goes back to his desk and takes his sketches out again.  
He looks at them and finds them ugly, dull, prosaic.  
How can he look through this world? He can’t even look through himself.

 

 

He tries to be a tourist for the day. He follows other tourists throughout the city, and it’s the first time he gets this close to the main attractions since he’s moved here.  
Before that, he had been to London only twice - both times had seen his family whole and happy.

Sitting on a bench in Southbank, watching the river, characteristically grey coloured, reflecting the same grey of the sky, he thinks that now that he’s tried to embrace that too, the tourist life, failing miserably even, there’s really nothing left to hold onto.  
Nothing enthused him: not Tower Bridge, not the Parliament or Westminster Abbey, not Hyde Park. He doesn’t even like the view in front of him now, not even Saint Paul’s cathedral in the background on the other side of the water.  
The riverside never seems to end, and it merciless shows him the city for what it is: overwhelming and disturbing. It’s just too much.

He takes out the phone so he doesn’t have to stare at that sight any longer and dials a number he knows by heart.  
Jon, his cousin - more of a brother truthfully, someone he’s grown up with under the same roof for most of his life - answers on the second ring. Of course he does.

“Robb!”

Robb feels like he could cry right here on the stupid bench. He's not used to hear his name anymore, it even sounds somewhat strange - that's what loneliness does to him.

“Hey, Jon.”

"How are you? I'm glad you called me."

They hadn’t left in exactly the best of terms. None of them had taken his departure well, neither his mother nor his siblings. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Scotland either, but it seemed necessary two months ago. At least he has that - it still feels like it was necessary. It makes him feel guilty, and selfish, but it’s just the truth.

“Am I bothering you?”

"Of course not, don’t be stupid. I'm still at the hospital, just finished my shift. At least I have the night off. It would have been the third one this week."

"Aw, poor you." Robb smiles.

The first time he had heard those words from Jon - _“you know what, I think I want to study nursing” _-__ he couldn’t exactly picture him like that. Jon’s kindness came from a different place, different from his. He had never dedicated himself to others completely, never gotten too attached to people, although he had always been caring towards everyone. He had always managed to detach himself at some point, while Robb never could - and Robb never will.  
With time, though, he realised that Jon has something he really doesn’t have: a certain kind of commitment.  
Jon is the one that can swim until he reaches the bottom of the sea if he has to. Robb is the one that gets lost halfway as he admires the fishes.

 __"__ I'm so tired. I can’t wait to go home and sleep.”

"Should I..."

“No. That's not what I meant Robb. It can wait. It’s been too long.”

More or less ten days, but it does seem like a lifetime.

"How are the others?"

Jon sighs. "They're doing okay. Sansa is stressed because of her exams so at the moment I’m trying to stay away from her,” he laughs. “Not too far away though, don’t worry. I sense she might try to overwork herself so I’m always keeping an eye. Arya, well… It's hard to figure out what's on her mind, and your mother is always worried about her. And about Bran, too, he always seems a bit down. Rickon, well, talks a lot about you.”

Robb nods to himself. He takes shallow breathes.

Jon can sense it. "They're doing okay, though."

"My mother?"

He feels guilty when he asks him about her. His mother has never managed to treat Jon as part of the family, a side of her he came to understand much later.

"She's doing fine, too. She's really worried about you, though."

Silence falls between them. Robb casts his eyes to the streets lights reflecting themselves on the water, noticing how the sun got lost behind the skyscrapers before it was even sunset.

"She thinks you’re not doing good, and to be frank I have to agree with her. She wants to call you more but last time you kind of... well, you hung up on her. She's not mad, by the way. She’s just, well, worried. And she wants you home for Christmas."

Robb closes his eyes for a second. "I don’t think I can make it for Christmas."

"Robb..."

"I have deadlines, and a project that is driving me crazy. I wish I could, I swear, but I don’t think I will have the time.”

“Not even for the weekend? Seriously, Robb, just take the train. Christmas Eve falls on Sunday this year."

"Yeah. Well, I don’t know. I have a deadline right after that."

Jon sighs. "Look, I don't want to be intrusive, but… if you don’t feel too good, you know you can always come up here right? If you don't feel like staying with them, my shitty door is always open for you.”

Robb lets out to shaky laugh. "Yeah. Of course, I know."

"Good."

The wind rises together with the darkness. The Christmas lights planted on trees since the first week of November - too soon, really - move at its command.

"How are things going there?" Jon asks.

Robb leans his elbows on his knees, thinking of the right words to say.

”It’s hard sometimes,” he says, “but I can’t really complain."

“Hard how?”

"It's just,” he breathes in deeply. “It’s this place. It's too big. I don’t know anyone."

He doesn’t try to explain how small and insignificant he feels when he walks through the streets of London. He doesn’t think he could be able to.

"Maybe you just need a friend. Someone at work can you hang out with? You're friendly, people like you."

It’s not how it works, he thinks. Being friendly is not enough, and he’s been feeling numb since the start. This place moves in accord to its work ethic: everything goes fast, people don’t look at each other.

For a moment, his mind goes to the lost journal he still has at home. He thinks how the person who wrote it was still able to look at the world with something more than tired, half-closed eyes.  
He envies this person. Everything gathers in his mind in forms of broken memories, a younger self completely absorbed in his imagination, dreaming of becoming an animator, drawing stories and bringing them to life; the person who once was that he struggles to find again.

“Maybe” he finally tells Jon.

He doesn’t want to bother him, and he also knows that Jon is practical, always there to suggest the right prescription. Sometimes it turns out to be the wrong one, but Robb doesn’t love him any less for that.

__

 

He takes a look inside the journal again.

He feels guilty when he thinks that, were this his diary, the last thing he would want is a complete stranger digging into his thoughts.  
He can’t help it, his mind always goes back to it. Maybe, if he kept reading, he could find something that could lead him to the owner - he could give them their journal back.  
It saddens him, when he thinks back to the journal abandoned like that in a world that doesn’t care, and there is a part of him - a huge part of him, that is - that wants to see more of those drawings inside it.  
He goes through the pages cautiously, he handles the paper with all the care he has left.

 _When I was I little boy,_ it says on the third page.

At least he knows something now. Unless it’s a quote from somewhere, this person is man.  

> _When I was a little boy, I used to love the sea._
> 
> _I wanted to be a pirate, plowing the seven seas._
> 
> _Even now that I no longer want to be a pirate, I miss the sound of it._
> 
> _I miss the sea that changes its color all the time, I miss the sea that never stops its run against the coast. The sea that is always there for you even when you're not._

There is a drawing on the side of the page, a small ferris wheel overlooking the sea.  
It looks like it stands above a seaport, the sky and the sea are different shades of green, the boats just small hints of colour on the paper.  
It’s a good drawing, he realises. Perhaps a bit rough, like it was made by someone who is not aware he has a talent yet. Robb would love to go back to those times his drawings were looking like this, too, before his studies spoiled the fun for him a bit.

A small note at the bottom of the page says: _"I jumped on a bus to Dún Laoghaire, stopping off to pick up my guitar..."_

Dún Laoghaire. Robb looks it up on his phone. It’s a small seaside village just outside of Dublin, apparently, and clearly a pretty one. It looks like a painting itself. Perhaps this man is not even a Londoner - he hasn’t even thought of the many tourists flooding the city every day.  
Foolishly, he got too fond of the idea of this mysterious person living somewhere close to him that he forgot how high the chances are of this journal belonging to a visitor. It could be a travel diary, written by a Jim Hawkins looking for a treasure. Maybe, if he keeps reading, he will find the whole world in it.

The thought keeps him busy for a few minutes. Then he starts flipping through the pages, and he finds a few sketches of London too, he can distinguish Tower Bridge and the river Thames.  
He closes the diary again, sighing. He doesn’t know what to do.  
He has to start from the beginning. He finds a number of pages filled with text. The handwriting is difficult to read, and the many words that have been crossed out don’t help.  
It takes him some time to get used to it, but he just forgets about it at some point.

He reads some pages, and then he closes the diary again. He puts it back in his drawer.

__

 

Robb doesn’t know what he’s doing, lost between the houses of Dalston Lane, a labyrinth of bricks along the main street.  
The recent urban development of East of London has caused most people to pile together towards the end of each district where the rent was cheaper, and this ended up creating a weird contrast: the fancy new studio apartments and shops near the station, the rest of the old houses not too far away.  
The new doesn’t replace the old, it’s one of those things he has learned about London. It only moves it a little further.

He walks all the way up until he sees Woodland Street. He takes a look at the road on his right, at the houses standing next to each other, then he keeps walking.  
At the following crossroads, he stops two kids on their bikes.

“I’m trying to find Stonebridge Gardens. It's a park near here, isn’t it? "

The two boys look at each other, hoodies pulled over both their heads.

"Are you from ends?"

"He's fucking Scot, you idiot. You can hear that."

“Don’t fucking talk to me like that.”

Robb chuckles. "So, the park?"

“Are you hidin’?”

"What?" Robb laughs. "Jeez, no."

"He doesn’t look like that.”

“Again with that tone. The fuck I know. That park's where the mandem go."

“Yeah. Or when you're linking to a girl and you're looking for a place.”

They look at him like they’re trying to establish whether if he belongs to the first or the second category.

“I just want to have a look.”

Now they look at him like he’s crazy.

“Why?”

“Because.”

One of them shrugs. “Road here got lock arff at the end, innit? You have to, uh…”

“We’ll take you there. It’s not far.”

“Yeah.”

Robb smiles. “Thanks. Lead the way, then.”

The two boys leave him in front of the entrance. The park is pretty small, but when he takes out the journal and compares the drawing with what’s around him, he feels overwhelmed.  
The trees in the drawing are the same, and so is the abandoned playground, and the small fountain near it.  
He sits down and keeps reading further.   

> _Stonebridge Gardens. It was renovated last year, cleared of the dirt and the dead plants._
> 
> _Yet I can still remember what it was like, until recently. And I think people also remember it because they don’t come here often._
> 
> _It was a wild place once, and I liked it because I was wild too. It was the first place I felt mine when I moved here._

Next to it there’s a drawing of his house. One name, Woodland Street, and a number: 54.  
Robb doesn’t plan to go to the house, because the more he reads, the more he gets the impression that he won’t find him there. It would also make him feel even more stupid than he already feels.  
Yet here on the bench of this small and desolate park, far from the center, from the lights, from the shops and its too bright windows, he feels calmer.  
He feels like he’s breathing again.  

> _When my father sold his fish shop, full of debts, he was persuaded by one of his old friends to move the whole family to London._  
>  _He found a job in a factory in Haggerston, back to when that was purely an industrial area. And then he dragged my brothers with him in that place. He would have done the same with me if I were older, and I’m glad I weren’t. After all, I was lucky. Work like that can destroy people. That’s how humanity will end. Working._

By the look of it, the factory drawn looks very grey and very gloomy. Sometimes London doesn’t even seem that different from the fumes of the Victorian era: less coal and less pestilences of course, but a deep, similar sense of desolation in the backstreets.  
Robb realises he's reading the diary in small doses. He still feels guilty about it, but what scares him even more is that he's so obsessed with it to the point he’s afraid of getting lost in there, to become just an extension of the ink.  
He stays there in the park for a long while.

__

 

The thing that pleases him the most about the journal is that it's pretty much incoherent and discontinuous.  
Some pages are very intimate, and others just drawings after drawings that have nothing to do with the story, but they still resonate with Robb when he tries to imagine the person this guy might be.  
Some of these drawings are flowers, plenty of them. They recur so often between the pages that Robb has to wonder if they are just there as a formal drawing exercise.  
Robb can’t exactly say he has a green thumb. For a moment, he even thinks of calling his mother, describing the drawings to her, asking her if she knew what flowers they might be. She’s always had an innate predisposition for that.

He doesn’t call her, though. Instead, he tries to find a particular flower on the internet, and when it succeeds - it’s a blue violet, apparently, - he ends up making sketches of it all the time.  
He draws violets at work, instead of focusing on his project. In bed, instead of trying to sleep. While he eats, sitting alone at his miserable table in his even miserable kitchen.  
Between one violet and another, he finds a name scribbled on the paper, _Persephone._  
Robb looks that up, too, and he learns that, according to legend, Persephone was holding a bundle of violets right before she was dragged down to hell.

That worries him, because sometimes he feels like he’s in hell too. He doesn’t sleep enough, he can’t concentrate at all, he’s not working on his project, and the only times he doesn’t feel like he’s burning all over is when he tries to find more about the person behind the journal.

He ends up talking to Jon about it one evening, two days before his first deadline.  
After his usual questions - how are you, how are they - and his usual answers - I'm fine, no, I'm not overworked, yes, of course I'm eating - he tells him about the journal. Not everything, though, most things he keeps them to himself. He doesn’t want to share them, out of respect, and also because the responsibility makes him feel strangely alive.

“But…I don’t get it.” Jon sounds puzzled, he can totally imagine how he must be looking right now, “you said there is an address. Why don’t you try there?"

Robb has thought about it too much. "I'm sure it's not his current address.” He wouldn’t have written it if it were. “His parents must live there, unless they moved, but I don’t think he lives with them.”

He’s also sure of it because he has read a few sentences here and there, like when you start a book and, caught up in curiosity, you find yourself browsing through the final pages.

"Okay, but what difference does it make? If those are his parents, just give it to them.”

"I don’t know.” He feels like he does. “It doesn’t seem right. I should return it to him."

“Yeah, but… I don’t think that’s easy, Robb."

Jon sounds concerned. Robb wonders if he’s questioning his sanity, at best, or if he’s judging him for caring about a stranger more than his own family.  
He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to know.

__

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> _It’s strange, how can you bond with someone over something as dreadful as death._  
>  _It's strange until it isn’t, as in death we are all equal._ _It’s like an inner justice that grows within injustice._  
>  _Or is that maybe another form of injustice, too? Is it fair that we are all equal in the face of death even when we are so different in life? Is it right that those who have done nothing but good should share the same destiny as those who were nothing but evil?_  
>  _Is that why man came up with the idea of heaven and hell, to make up for that injustice?_  
>  _I don’t know. All I know is that it’s frightening how easy it was to talk about this. They’ve been some of my favourite conversations, with one of the best people I know, while we were drinking the same flat white coffee. Conversations that blossomed like flowers despite the worst._

 

 

The banality of pain is that, at a certain point, you no longer feel anything.  
The nameless man writes about his dead brothers and Robb almost feel numb - almost, because it’s Robb, he still holds empathy tight against his heart and all, but it’s not a feeling he can elaborate much anymore. He refuses to.

He goes back to Dalston and doesn’t think about much else.  
His mind is still occupied with a joke that the other man has written down - it said: the past, the present, and the future walk into a bar... It was tense - which made him laugh out loud, he doesn’t care if it’s not that clever.

The banality of pain is also this, it leads you to be versatile. Like a bird that lands on the ground and then flies again, like an amphibious that comes and goes in and out of water.  
For the first time in months, he feels content. The sky is clear and blue above his head for once, and he feels less alone, as if he has found a new friend.

He brings the journal with him and he keeps reading it on the bus.  
He didn’t have a good relationship with his brothers, this is clear to Robb. It’s not explicitly said, just small things here and there. A few childhood anecdotes - broken arms, broken toys.  

> _When I feel like crying, I still remember my father teasing me for it, so I don’t._
> 
> _When I feel like reading a book again, I can think of all the books my brothers have thrown in the fireplace, so I don’t do that either._

It doesn’t seem like a healthy childhood at all, but he never really blames anyone. Robb doesn’t know how he does that.  
When he gets off the bus, he knows exactly where to go. He follows the directions on his phone this time, because he's almost in a hurry to get there.

When he does arrive, and he compares the drawing with the place in front of him, they are just the same. Robb feels it again, that brightness spreading a light inside of him.  
It has an old sign and even older wooden benches outside. It looks like one of those places that just don't want to die. One of those places that keep going in spite of everything, they remain still while the world gets broken and is forced to be reborn over and over again.

He looks at it while leaning against a lamp post across the street and he smiles. His heart is beating oddly in his chest, a fast and an irregular beat, almost like it’s thanking him for this new emotion. He crosses the road slowly. He enters and sits in a corner, orders a flat white coffee and grabs his sketchbook.  
He raises his head every time someone enters, and then he goes back to his drawings. He sketches a young boy on his bike headed to a small park and pubs and cafes with antique signs and furniture.

He draws until a middle-aged man comes out of the back whistling a song he doesn’t know.

"Sorry for the delay Tom, I must confess that I have dozed off. You can go.”

 _Tom._ Robb turns to look at the pair.  

> _Sometimes, when he's very tired, Tom does longer shifts. He always pays him extra of course, maybe even more than he should. Tom always asks him: "are you sure you don’t_ _need me anymore?"_

"Alright. Thanks, Davos. You sure you don't need me anymore?”  

> _And Davos always tells him no. “Go back home, Tom,” he says ..._

"... have some fun tonight.”   

> _Then he puts some music on. Which is almost always old Bob Dylan songs. Corrina Corrina, He was a friend of mine. I know them all, now._

"Do you mind if I put some music on?"

The man is talking to him.

Robb shakes his head, almost hypnotised. He hears Dylan's voice, or at least he's pretty sure that’s him.     

> _And he always talks to me, he tells me about his day. He asks me how I’m doing, because that’s how he is, he cares about people, and I care about him because I know he’s lonely, too._

"You have some nice sketches there."

Robb looks up at him. The man’s pale greenish eyes remind him of something personal, something that makes his heart tighten.

"Thank you" he murmurs. He tries to move the sketchbook towards him without being too obvious, but the other seems to understand and come closer.

"Is this a story?"

Robb doesn’t know, not yet. "Maybe" he says. "It's a project I'm working at, for work.”

Davos smiles. "Nice. I'm sure it will be a good story. "

Robb shrugs. “It's for some advertising video. Nothing special."

The other man stares at him for a few seconds. "I'm Davos, by the way." He holds out his hand to him.

Robb looks at it for a short moment before doing the same. "Robb."

Two customers enter and Davos goes to serve them. When he returns, he sits in front of Robb and continues to look at him thoughtfully.

"I'm sorry," he finally says. "It's strange. You remind me of my son. Always drawing, he was."

Robb already knows.

"I'm sorry about your son.”

Davos is startled for a moment, surprised.

“Don't be."

Robb flips through the pages of his sketchbook. He turns it towards him.

"That's my father. He passed away three months ago."

He doesn’t know why he’s telling this to someone he’s just met.  
Or maybe, he thinks, looking down to the journal while his eyes fill with tears, maybe he knows.  
If men were not so similar after all, they wouldn’t be able to love each other. They would all be strangers, and maybe they would speak as many languages as there are people.  
They can have different faces, different thoughts, different dreams, different passions, different ways of living, of course, but the similarities dig much deeper, and intertwine hearts together like they were trees.

"It's a beautiful drawing,” Davos says gently. "You're talented."

He wipes his tears quickly.

 

It's only when he’s about to leave that he hands him the diary. He knows it’s the right choice.  
Davos flicks through it briefly, his eyes suddenly veiled with sadness.

"Theon."

Robb inhales. "That's his name? Theon?"

"It is." Davos smiles.

"Do you know where I can find him? I would like to give this back to him."

Davos keeps his eyes fixed on the journal. He shakes his head.

Robb feels desperate. "No?"

“No. I haven’t seen him in a while, now. One day he was here, the other day he just disappeared.” He shakes his head. "I miss that one. I know he was living with his sister, but I don’t know where. I never asked.”

Robb can’t hide his disappointment. “I guess this was my last chance to find him, then. Thanks again.”

He is about to go away but Davos stops him and hands him the journal back.

“No. You know him. You should have it, in case he comes back.”

"No" Davos mirrors him. He's smiling again. "You found it. I think you should keep it."

He takes it back, reluctantly.

"I just want you to promise me something. If you see him, say hello. Can you promise me that?"

Robb nods. He already knows he will.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> _The last time I spoke to my mother, she didn’t even recognise me._  
>  _She goes around the streets to call me and my siblings out loud, thinking we’re still kids late for tea. The other kids make fun of her. Adults do it too, I'm sure, they just make sure nobody sees them. Maybe it’s my fault that she’s like this. I left and that was the final blow._  
>  _But I had to, and I wish I could explain it to her._  
>  _I used to imagine our first meeting after I left, with me explaining to her why I needed to get out of there so bad. I used to imagine her smiling, and telling me not to worry, that she was my mother and she knew me better than anyone._  
>  _I avoid her instead, because I already know that I don’t exist anymore, and I can almost live with that. But if it’s my mother who invalidates my existence, my mother out of everyone else in this world, that’s something I can’t bear._  
>  _I still hope that, in her own, distorted way, she can still understand, and I hope she forgives me and still loves me like she can._
> 
> __

 

Robb, lying on the bed, is staring at the ceiling. Just an hour ago he could have sworn he was seeing a shape between all the cracks - it looked like an anthropomorphic fox with sunglasses on. He can’t find it again, now. He only sees the cracks.

Only an hour ago, his boss had called him to ask him about the project, and he had told him he had nothing to pitch him.  
It was half a truth. He did have a story, but he also didn’t, not really. It wasn’t his, he had borrowed it, and he’s a better person than that.

The more he digs into the thoughts of the young man whose name now he knows, the more he feels less alone. He thinks of Theon as the man, not just one.  
Selling him off to some rich company would be like selling out the whole of mankind.

When he dials his mother's number, he's still staring at the cracks. He breaks down when he hears her voice, but doesn’t take his eyes off the ceiling.  
She understands, and that makes him sob even more because he loves her, and because he thinks that this is what Theon desperately wants too. His heart hurts and it’s deeper than pity.  
It hurts him so much he can’t breathe.

 __  

   

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> _I don’t know if I can get back to what I was before. Something has broken inside me and I no longer know how to fix it._  
>  _What hurts me the most is when I realise I don’t think I’ve ever known who I am. It feels like I have lived multiple lives._  
>  _I was a quiet child turned into a stupid and arrogant young man. Now there is nothing._  
>  _I fell into a spider’s web and still feel it on me. It will never go away. The web runs along the scars, and slips into the places where it hurts most - into the eyes, so that I can’t see, into the ears, so that I can’t hear, into the heart, so that I can’t feel._  
>  _I'm nothing, only broken bones. Dead stars, rotten blood and broken bones._

No, you're not. He says it aloud.  
He’s sitting in his favorite place in Southbank, his eyes fixed on the river until they burn, knees against his chest.  
You're fucking not. You're more than that. You're not.  
He opens the journal again, but he has nothing left to read, not a new drawing to look at. He turns the pages quickly, with anger.  
Give me a sign, he thinks. Something. Give me something.

And Theon answers.  
There is something written on one of the final pages, and it’s so minuscule Robb can’t read it straight away.  
_Twickenham_ , he manages to read. _In front of the sea._

__

  

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> _Hello._
> 
> _I found this on the tube a few weeks ago._  
>  _Please forgive me if I had to take a look, but I went to the police and they didn’t help, so this was the only way. I had no idea about these statues, they look very beautiful._ _I’m leaving this on the ground right in front of them, but I’m totally waiting until I know you picked it up._  
>  _To make this obviously more awkward, I asked your friend Davos if he had any picture of you, which he didn’t, but he tried to describe you to me so I hope I’m not screwing this up._  
>  _(Go to him, when you feel like it, because I think he misses you.)_
> 
> _Ps: Your drawings are amazing. Keep working on them._
> 
> _Merry Christmas Eve,_
> 
> _Robb_

 

 

__

* * *

__

 

"Robb, Robb, Robb. Robb.”

“I heard you.”

“Pay attention to me. Pay attention to me. Please. Stop drawing. Pay attention to me.”

Robb laughs. His eyes still sparkle when he looks at him.

“Alright. Please enlighten me.”

“Would you read this? It’s at the end.”

The blue journal is back in his hands.

Robb looks up.

“Are you sure?”

He hears a laugh.

“Of course I am. I’ll be in the bedroom, I need to revise. Okay. Bye.”

Robb smiles fondly while he looks at it. It looks at the cover, and his smile goes wider when he sees some of those drawings again. The, he finds the page at the end of the journal and starts reading.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> _Hello._
> 
> _I feel like I owe you an apology._
> 
> _You know, I was angry when I found the journal again that day. I read your note and I didn’t even look behind me to see if you were still here - I’m sure you weren’t though, I’m sure you were already gone - just so not to make things worse.  That’s because you’re kind._
> 
> _(Not too kind like your mum says. Just kind)._
> 
> _I wasn’t mad at you, but I’m sorry I made you think otherwise. Deep down, I hoped I could see you again, and I wanted to thank you for everything you did._
> 
> _(I still can’t believe you understood I meant the Eight Oceanids in Twickenham. You’re crazy.)_
> 
> _I’m just glad you came back to visit Davos that day, and that you took a chance on me despite everything. I’m glad that you still do._
> 
> _It’s weird that we haven’t talked about this. We have talked about pretty much anything in the past year, both of us, but not the journal.  Well, I haven’t written in it in a few months - but I still use it when I feel like drawing  (give me a feedback on the new stuff, by the way. Please.)_
> 
> _I went through it again recently and it saddens me to think the first page of this journal you had to read was something I had written at the lowest point in my life.  Before you say something - I know you’re about to - let me say this: I know I have every right to._
> 
> _Still, I need to tell you something about that, something that you, more than anyone, deserve to hear._
> 
> _I once said I didn’t want to wish upon a star anymore, because I didn’t want stars and men to have that power over me.  That’s just not true, Robb. We don’t know how we are going to be treated in this life, and the only thing we have left is the belief that our thoughts cannot be taken away._
> 
> _Even if we lose them for a short while. They always come back, like my journal did, and we ought that to people, to trust them and to share those with them. If they betray you, you just reclaim your thoughts back and leave them with nothing. If they love you, they will help you get your thoughts back every time you lose them._
> 
> _As you did. As I hope I do too for you._
> 
> _Merry Christmas Eve,_
> 
> _Theon_


End file.
